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.AI Domain Names: InterNetX Does a Deep Dive

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.AI is the country code extension (ccTLD) for the Caribbean country of Anguilla. Domain names with the .AI extension were originally created to give people in Anguilla their own home online. In the last couple of years, .AI domain names have become popular outside of Anguilla because AI is the abbreviation for Artificial Intelligence. Billions of dollars in funding has been given to AI-related startups, and I have noticed many startups in the field of AI are using .AI domain names.

As a result of the broadened usage of .AI domain names, the value of .AI domain names has taken off. More .AI domain names are selling on the aftermarket, and auction prices for .AI domain names have climbed. YTD, NameBio has recorded more than $3.3m worth of publicly reported .AI domain name sales.

Mega.xyz Buyer Opts Out of LTO

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Lease to Own deals have become quite popular at Dan.com. The buyer can pay for a domain name monthly over a set period of time while Dan.com holds the domain name. If the buyer opts out of the LTO deal, the seller will receive the domain name back and can keep all of the funds paid, minus the monthly commission fee.

Domain Gang and DNW recently reported on the $129k LTO sale of Mega.xyz. As Theo reported, the five year lease to own plan had a total value of $167,000 had all payments been made. When the LTO deal was struck, the seller, domain industry veteran Kellie Peterson, posted on LinkedIn about this LTO deal and prior experience with .XYZ domain names.

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a tweet from Domainler.com asking if the sale had been cancelled because Mega.xyz was now resolving to a Dan.com “for sale” landing page:

Namecheap Makes 2 Changes to Auctions to Enhance Trust

In an email sent to customers this morning, Namecheap announced two changes to its domain name auction Marketplace. The Marketplace platform will assign user badges to illustrate the number of domain auctions bidders have won. The badge levels are Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. In addition, when an auction winner does not pay, it will be re-auctioned rather than offered to the runner up bidder.

The rationale for these changes is “[t]o make sure the Marketplace remains a trusted platform, and to ensure that each auction is conducted fairly.”

Here’s the email I received from Namecheap explaining the changes that were made and why the changes were made:

WordPress Introduces “100-Year Plan” Including Domain Registrations

In a blog post yesterday, WordPress announced its new “100-Year Plan.” The plan includes domain name registration, hosting, and support for 100 years. The cost is a staggering $38,000 for each plan.

WordPress created a video advertisement for this new service, and it’s clearly not targeting domain investors or domain name portfolio registrants:

Many Factors Go Into My Response to Purchase Inquiries

I have several templates I have crafted to respond to purchase inquiries. These templates vary based on the type of domain name. For instance, inventory-quality domain names have a pretty standard response but higher value domain names are more custom tailored based on the domain name and my history with it.

I change up my templates from time to time to modify them as needed. When responding to purchase inquiries and having subsequent discussions about my domain names, there are many factors that play a role in how I respond to a purchase inquiry.

Plans.com Sold for $275k via Squadhelp

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Squadhelp announced that Plans.com was sold for $275,000 via its recently launched Ultra Premium Domain Marketplace. It was the first sale closed on Squadhelp’s high end domain name marketplace. Some details about the sale were shared on Twitter/X by the company:

Squadhelp CEO Darpan Munjal commented to me on the sale:

“The Ultra premium marketplace is still in a private Beta, and the domains can be currently searched via the discovery tools on Squadhelp.com. I believe there is a massive potential for an exclusive destination of top tier domains and we are already seeing quite a bit of inbound interest for higher end domains. We plan to amplify the marketing exposure after our public launch in the coming weeks.”

Once the sale is added to DNJournal’s year to date sales report, it will rank as a top 10 public domain name sale YTD. I added it to the Embrace.com list of recent one word .com domain name sales.

Squadhelp recently announced it would begin accepting listing submissions for its premium marketplace.